


Deck Your Halls

by lyonet



Series: A Right Turn After Bad Idea [12]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Christmas Fluff, F/F, Light Angst, M/M, Past minor character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-14
Updated: 2016-11-14
Packaged: 2018-08-30 23:02:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8552926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyonet/pseuds/lyonet
Summary: “Why do I keep having parties?” he mumbled plaintively around his toothbrush. “Why didn’t you stop me inviting people?”
“You wouldn’t have listened if I’d tried,” Merlin pointed out unsympathetically, from the shower. He rinsed the suds out of his hair then poked his head around the curtain to add, “And it was your idea to bundle up three celebrations into one party.”
“Don’t rub it in,” Arthur said severely. “It’s unattractive to be smug.”
“Take it from me,” Merlin said, kissing his jaw on the way to the towel rack, “it’s not.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I was going to post this in December, but I think we could all do with some happy fluff right now.

The festive season descended on the city in a haze of tinsel and tinny carols, somehow coming as a surprise despite the fact Arthur was a calendar addict and it had been December for two weeks already. The only places he had been lately apart from work and home were entirely wedding-centric, and Caerleon was not the kind of office where they put up decorations. Annis tolerated the existence of a non-denominational end-of-year party that she never attended and that the organisers, without fail, always turned into a full-on Christmas party complete with red and green holiday cocktails at the nearest tacky bar, but Arthur had given it a miss this year to attend his wedding rehearsal instead.

It had not snowed yet. An icy drizzle had set in on Tuesday instead and showed no signs of letting up three days later. While it looked quite pretty from the other side of a café window, Arthur wasn’t looking forward to going back outside. It was, however, a long-standing agreement that Arthur and Morgana would suffer through Christmas shopping together, so that they could complain about their friends, families and above all their father. The Pendragons didn’t have many Christmas traditions and a bit of unpleasant weather wasn’t going to stop Arthur keeping this one.

Morgana was in fine form. “Uther doesn’t deserve a gift,” she said darkly, taking a swig of her gingerbread latte. “I vote we don’t buy him anything.”

“It’s Christmas,” Arthur said charitably. “Also, he’s paying for my wedding.”

“As an apology for fucking up, it doesn’t count.” Morgana tapped her glossy black fingernails on the table-top, eyes narrowing contemplatively. “I could give him a lump of coal. See if he got the message. Though, no, he’d probably just use it to set fire to unflattering newspapers. You know the one that does those cartoons? With him in the crown? I loved those. I ordered prints.”

Arthur snorted. “Let’s go look at ties.”

“Have it your way.” Morgana stood up, swinging her handbag over her shoulder. “How are the wedding plans going, by the way? Have you had any screaming fights I’d want to hear about?”

“You have a very weird concept of romance.” Arthur opened an umbrella over the two of them as they walked out into the rain. “Ever since Merlin finished up his exams he’s been catching up on sleep, he hasn’t been awake long enough to argue about anything lately. There’s not much left to do now anyway. Just the party tomorrow.”

“I know, the engagement-house-warming-Christmas party. I’m expecting fireworks and a brass band with all that hype, you know.”

“Expect a mess,” Arthur sighed. “There are still boxes all over the house.”

They went into a gentleman’s apparel shop and looked at ties. Morgana held up several options against her low-cut black lace blouse, squaring her jaw and making dire pronouncements on the state of the economy in quite good mimicry of Uther, while Arthur looked at cravats and wished he’d brought along George. His PA got along incredibly well with his father, a lucky coincidence that had rescued him from more than a few awkward phone calls. George would probably pick the perfect gift within minutes, in much the same way that he made the perfect coffee and kept the perfect filing system.

Bringing _Merlin_ along on this shopping trip had been a non-starter; Arthur had suggested it this morning and Merlin had stared at him blankly for half a minute before rolling over to squash his face firmly in the pillow. He had fake-snored loudly until Arthur went away. From the sounds of it Vivian had done a similar thing, only with more sarcasm. “Well, they’ve met us,” Morgana had said, when Arthur complained about it, and he had to admit she was right.

She was not right about ties. The ones she wanted to buy were very hideous Christmas novelties patterned with comical snowmen or a scarlet HO HO HO that the media would have a field day over if Uther ever actually wore it, which he definitely would not. Arthur eventually convinced her to get a more tasteful poinsettia design that might not languish in a drawer for the rest of its natural life and bought a pair of golden cuff-links shaped like holly leaves on his own behalf. Uther was not a very enthusiastic celebrator of Christmas, but he liked seasonal accents for December’s round of social events.

The rest of the morning was spent darting in and out of the car, umbrella at the ready, while Arthur and Morgana argued through the rest of the Christmas shopping. She tried to drag him into a sex toy shop to choose Vivian’s present (“get something for Merlin while we’re at it! The gift that keeps on giving, Arthur, I’m just saying”). He retaliated by combing at unnecessary length through a hardware outlet for an appropriately expensive set of power tools for Elyan, as a thank you for all those bookshelves, while Morgana made meaningful comments about shovels and chemicals and the useful tips on body disposal that she had acquired from binge-watching every crime show ever.

There was a brief ceasefire when they went into a big department store to pick out a present for Aithusa. Morgana and Vivian were in the early stages of the adoption process and were going to be spending Christmas Day with their not-yet-officially-daughter, under Finna’s supervision. Morgana cornered no less than five sales assistants for an impromptu vote on what constituted the perfect present for a girl of three and a half, looked like she was going to bite the one who suggested a pink plastic stove, and eventually settled on a dinosaur hoodie because it looked enough like a dragon costume. Arthur gave her the thumbs up and allowed the sales assistants to make their escape.

The peace shattered when they both decided to buy the same perfume for Gwen, leading to an undignified squabble in the cosmetics section. Arthur lost. He sullenly bought an enormous ornate plant stand that wouldn’t fit in the car and would have to be delivered.

“What about _your_ father-in-law?” Morgana inquired sweetly, having just selected whiskey for hers. There was no call for her to look so smug. Vivian had been texting instructions for an hour.

“Balinor is not my father-in-law yet,” Arthur snapped, trying to find space for the whiskey in the overcrowded boot of his Porsche. He had no idea what Balinor would want; he had not so much as seen the man yet. “Merlin agreed, we’re buying presents separately this year – him for his family, me for mine, and we’ll figure it out together next Christmas.”

“That all sounds very tidy,” Morgana said, “except for the bit where you’re spending Christmas with his family instead of yours.”

Arthur slammed the boot shut and turned on her indignantly. “You _started_ it. You haven’t spent Christmas Day with us in years and you’re only going this year as an excuse not to see _Vivian’s_ family.”

“You could at least come for dinner on Christmas Eve. It’s not fair I have to go along and play nicely with the politicians if you don’t have to.”

“I told you, we’re staying overnight on Christmas Eve, Merlin wants to spend some time with his family. He hasn’t seen them in ages and they’ve come down from Wales especially for the wedding.” They got into the car and Arthur admitted, “I thought it would be at Hunith’s when I agreed to go, but apparently they always do Christmas at Kilgarrah’s. So that’s where we’re going.”

“This being the Kilgarrah who invents wacky cocktails and talks about destiny all the time?”

“Yep.”

“You poor sucker,” Morgana said kindly. “I can enjoy Uther’s party now.”

* * *

Merlin loved sleeping. There were so many good places to sleep in his new home, unpacked boxes notwithstanding: the new squashy red sofas, a padded bench set into the bay window, the king-size bed transferred from Arthur’s flat to the bedroom in Camelot Court with every single one of its hundred or so pillows. Cocooned in the sinfully fluffy duvet, drowsily contemplating a late breakfast at the bakery around the corner, Merlin had not one twinge of regret for abandoning his fiance to gift shopping with Morgana, and could even feel the pride of being ahead of Arthur’s planning for once, since Merlin’s present-buying had been dispersed over the course of the year. All that remained now was remembering which box they were all in.

He wasn’t worried about the party tomorrow, either. Merlin had spent the past month and a half in a state of constant worry about one thing or another and now he had finally worried himself out the other side into a floating, peaceable state of not giving a fuck. This party was officially the problem of the best men and woman. Merlin and Arthur hadn’t even put up a tree, since they wouldn’t be here at Christmas to appreciate it. Their decorating plan was to finish unpacking the boxes in the sitting room, so that nobody would be tempted to sit on them.

After hot chocolate and a pecan danish at Camelot Kitchens – during which he entertained himself by reading Arthur’s increasingly desperate narration of Morgana’s quest to find the perfect gift for Morgause, accepting no substitutes – Merlin walked home to get started on unpacking boxes. They were mostly his books. Halfway through the shelving process, he realised he’d opened one of Arthur’s boxes, flipped interestedly through a few of the books inside and started finding spaces for them among his own collection. It felt almost as big a commitment as the upcoming wedding vows. Merlin had lost a signed copy of _Guard, Guards!_ during the break-up with his last boyfriend, Gilli, and was still a little bitter about it. When he was done unpacking the books and they were finally all lined up on the beautiful shelves Elyan had built, he stood back with a slightly choked-up feeling, as it hit home all over again that he was _getting married._

“I’m getting married,” he told his mother, sitting on the floor with the phone pressed against his ear.

“I know, sweetheart,” she said patiently. “Has something happened?”

“No, just…I’ve never _planned_ on living with someone before, Mum, I only moved in with Gilli because I was too broke to do anything else. This is so strange. Good strange.”

Hunith made understanding noises, then turned away from the phone to shout, “Please stop antagonising the neighbours, Taliesin, and put the mirror _down_.”

“Um. So how’s it going with the guests?”

“I’m managing. Balinor and Taliesin are going to stay with Kilgarrah from Christmas until the wedding, so it’s not for very much longer anyway…” Hunith broke off. “For pity’s sake, now he’s in the rockery. Goodbye, darling, give my love to Arthur,” and she hung up, presumably marching out to stop Taliesin demolishing her garden.

From Merlin’s memory, his great-uncle on his father’s side was a sweet and very opinionated old man who liked to take everything apart to see how it worked, and whose favourite running joke was pretending that he could read minds. Put that together with Balinor’s usual misanthropic gloom and the high probability Kilgarrah was around somewhere cackling to himself over a joke nobody else understood, and Hunith was in for a very long week. Merlin was guiltily grateful that he didn’t have enough room to put them up himself. He was hoping that when he finally introduced Arthur to Balinor and Taliesin, a combination of Christmas spirit and the desire not to annoy Hunith any more would keep the conversation out of dangerous territory.

He finished clearing boxes out of the living room and decided, virtuously, to get all his gifts wrapped at once. He then spent the rest of the morning trying to find them, eventually tracking down the right box to the cupboard under the kitchen sink, past!Merlin having applied the logic that Arthur wouldn’t look there – which, after all, he hadn’t. He was battling a roll of recalcitrant sticky tape when Freya rang.

“Do you have balloons?” she asked, without preamble.

Merlin surveyed the carnage of wrapping paper. “Probably not. Why?”

“Never mind. What about forks? How many have you got?”

“I have no idea. Again, Freya, why?”

“Will can’t plan a party to save his life, is why,” Freya said crisply. “And I _can_.”

She hung up and Merlin took two seconds to wonder what that meant for tomorrow, before giving up with a shrug. He was sure Freya could handle it.

Arthur got home late, exhausted, and was not in a party mood when he woke up the next morning. “Why do I keep having parties?” he mumbled plaintively around his toothbrush. “Why didn’t you stop me inviting people?”

“You wouldn’t have listened if I’d tried,” Merlin pointed out unsympathetically, from the shower. He rinsed the suds out of his hair then poked his head around the curtain to add, “ _And_ it was your idea to bundle up three celebrations into one party.”

“Don’t rub it in,” Arthur said severely. “It’s unattractive to be smug.”

“Take it from me,” Merlin said, kissing his jaw on the way to the towel rack, “it’s not.”

Arthur’s idea – and it had _definitely_ been Arthur’s idea – had been to have a relaxing all-day get-together, with friends dropping in when they could and no pressure. Freya showed up at eleven with heart-shaped caramel brownies, pumpkin spice cocoa mix and absolutely no patience left with everyone else who had been planning the party. Arthur made sympathetic noises and three mugs of the cocoa. The two of them seemed to have bonded over their crafting session, though Arthur would probably have warmed to anyone willing to whinge about Will with him.

“He’s so obstructive!” Freya said. “You know, he didn’t even want to play my wedding game?”

“We’re totally playing the wedding game,” Arthur promised, too fast for Merlin to stop him.

Luckily, it was not a board game. Pendragons, Merlin had learned the hard way, should not be allowed near board games if you wanted guaranteed survivors. Freya’s idea was part quiz, part scavenger hunt, and it ended with them out in the garden throwing balloons at each other. By that point Leon, Mithian and Elena had shown up and the girls displayed the kind of competitive streak that explained exactly why they were friends with Arthur. There was a wild scuffle over the balloons that led to everyone getting splattered with mud. Elena howled with laughter when Leon’s balloon exploded in a rose bush, and Mithian – who had somehow stayed very nearly clean throughout – won when her white balloon was the only one to survive the game.

They had washed off most of the mud when Gwen and Lance arrived with several boxes of their mutually excellent cooking. Freya and Lance sat down to talk recipes while Merlin gave Gwen a tour of the house and when he came back, Gwaine was stuffing his face with the apple tartlets. His presence explained the playlist of eighties love ballads now blasting from the sitting room speakers. He bounded over to say hello, kissing Merlin and Gwen each on the cheek and throwing his arms around them both in time for Elena to take a photo.

“Happy Housengagementass!” he yelled over the music. “Let’s dance!”

Will opened the door half an hour later to Gwaine twerking and Merlin nearly choking on his laughter while he tried to keep up. “We played my game and it was awesome!” Freya called, dancing nearby with Arthur. Will never did confused if he could do grouchy and stomped off to the kitchen, where Vivian and Morgana were mixing up what they called ‘fruit punch kickers’. They had refused to let Merlin help but immediately put Will to work chopping strawberries.

Sometime while Merlin was not paying attention, red bunting appeared on the bannisters, spelling out ‘CONGRATULATIONS ARTHUR AND MERLIN!’. Will sat a mini fibre optic tree on the coffee table like a spiky seasonal disco ball. Mithian tied back Leon’s hair with a stray ribbon. Everyone opened presents and drank the fruit punch kickers against their better judgement, and Merlin had a hazy impression of Gwaine talking several people into a conga line before he passed out on Arthur’s lap. Arthur must have fallen asleep too, because when they woke up the next morning someone had covered them in a blanket and scrawled on Merlin’s hand _for better._ Arthur’s read _or worse_.

Merlin stumbled into the kitchen to get water, nearly tripping over a couple of guests sleeping on an air mattress on the floor, a timely present from last night. He switched on the coffee-maker, spread leftover brie on toast and contemplated a set of novelty drinking glasses shaped like pineapples lined up beside the sink. He wondered who had given those, and whether Arthur would want to keep them. That was the thing about getting married, it was suddenly important to know your significant other’s opinions on things as obscure as pineapple-themed glassware.

The glasses came in useful, as it happened, because Will, Gwaine and Elena had all stayed the night and now expected breakfast, and nothing from yesterday had been washed up yet. Arthur managed to sleep through the hungover shuffle of departure but woke up at once when his phone started buzzing. “Hello? Dad? Yes?” he garbled into it. “Tonight. Yes. Okay.”

Merlin emerged from the kitchen at that ominous assortment of words. “Was that Uther?”

“Yeah.” Arthur sat up, scrubbing a hand over his eyes. “He wants me to come to lunch.”

“On your own?” Merlin asked, suspicion uncoiling in his stomach. He did not object to Uther wanting private father-son time, but he did object to Uther in general and knew very well how much Uther felt about him. “Is this a Christmas thing?”

“I expect so,” Arthur said, but he was not awake enough to lie convincingly.

Merlin drew in a breath to say something both unpleasant and true, then let it go. Arthur had agreed to spend Christmas with the Emrys family; if the price of that was an hour or two of Uther dropping dark hints over a restaurant table, it was a balancing act that Merlin would just have to get used to. He went outside to pick scraps of popped balloon out of the rosebushes and took deep breaths of cold air, which helped his hangover. The rain had finally cleared. Merlin threw a handful of shredded plastic in the rubbish bin and returned inside to sulk discreetly over a cup of tea. He even managed to say “Wish Uther a merry Christmas for me!” when he saw Arthur off, because Merlin was by _far_ the better liar in this relationship.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Arthur’s anger at Uther’s secret-keeping had been alleviated by guilt at going away for Christmas, and Uther appeared to feel bad enough about the secret-keeping to be civil about those Christmas plans, so lunch was unexpectedly amiable. Uther took Arthur to a recently opened Japanese restaurant – probably a trial run to see if Morgana would like it too, since she was harder to please than Arthur was – and over bowls of nikujaga he waxed nostalgic about Christmases past, which he usually only did when he was a bit drunk.

“When you were six, you wanted a rocking horse,” he reflected. “Morgana got bored with her dolls house, so she pushed you off for a turn.”

Morgana had not wanted a dolls house. She had asked for a fort. Arthur remembered crying about his sore arm under the Christmas tree until Uther, in what was probably the best parenting decision he’d make for the next decade, took the two of them outside and shown them how to build barricades out of sticks. They had hurled handfuls of slush at each other until it got too dark to aim properly, then had run happily inside for cake, Christmas Day salvaged and friendship restored.

“I want to show you something,” Uther said, after he’d paid for lunch and they were leaving the restaurant. “I’ll have my PA drive your car back.”

Arthur was curious. The route Uther was taking was vaguely familiar, but it took him a while to realise why. “No, you don’t have to do this,” Arthur said, his good mood fading fast as Uther turned down the drive of a large, handsome Georgian building. A series of water features made it look like the place was surrounded by a moat, separating it from the parking lot, and ducks bobbed between the fountains. Uther’s face was unreadable as he got out of the car, and Arthur reluctantly followed. There should have been a third presence in the car, a woman standing in the space between them, but Ygraine Pendragon was never coming back to Avalon Museum.

“I do have to, Arthur,” was all Uther said, and they walked inside.

When Uther introduced himself to a museum guide, she shook his hand and led the way to the new wing. Arthur had not seen it in person yet, only the pictures that the museum had sent him when he booked it as his wedding venue. Uther obviously knew his way around but balked briefly at the entrance to the Pendragon wing, a white modernist version of a cloister garden with lots of glass and evergreen topiary. “The exhibition isn’t officially open yet,” the guide said confidentially, opening the doors, “but of course you two are an exception.”

“Exhibition?” Arthur echoed, frowning. He had not been told about that.

The guide smiled at him. “Your mother is much missed,” she said. “You look so much like her, Arthur.” She walked away before he could think of any reply to that.

It all made sense the moment he stepped inside the Pendragon wing. The walls were covered in paintings and sketches, all created by the same confident hand. Arthur saw his father’s face over and over again – younger, happier versions, one drawn playfully as a knight in armour with his visor open to show a smile and a lady’s favour tied to his arm. There were mountains, and beaches, and forests where stars swirled between the branches. Places that Ygraine had known and loved. And at the far end of the gallery there was a painting of a woman with long yellow hair, gazing out of her frame at them with interested blue eyes.

Arthur didn’t realise he had started crying until he tried to speak and his voice cracked. “You said there was nothing of her here.”

“There is not.” Uther was not looking at him, not crying either, but he was looking at the painting like it was the first time he’d ever seen it. “I used to come here. When she was alive. And after, for a while, but there was nothing left. There was nothing of her anywhere.”

The last Arthur had heard, every one of these paintings was in the most secure storage that money could buy. He had only seen them himself a handful of times, and most of the sketches were new to him. The enormity of the gesture was too much for him to take in all at once. He stared at his mother’s self-portrait and saw blue butterflies hidden in her long hair, like a secret joke just for him.

“She would have wanted to be here for your wedding,” Uther said stiffly. “Nothing would have stopped her. Nothing should.”

Ygraine had come back to the Avalon Museum, after all.

 


	3. Chapter 3

Given that Kilgarrah was the brains behind the Cavern, a building that actively sniggered at health and safety regulations (also at doorknobs), it was not unreasonable that Arthur should assume the worst and pack as if he was going camping, but all the extra luggage and the subsequent argument over it meant they hit the road an hour later than planned. Merlin had to call his mother with a revised estimate of their arrival time, giving Arthur pointed looks as he spoke that Arthur pretended to ignore. The frosty mood lasted until they reached the suburbs, which was when Merlin took over the driver’s seat and Arthur went back to sleep with his cheek against the window.

It was nearly noon when they turned off into the warren of side roads that led, eventually, to Kilgarrah’s house. Arthur squinted dubiously out the window at what was essentially a cottage with delusions of Gothic grandeur. There was a vast iron doorknocker in the shape of a taloned foot, so rusted over that it would not actually knock, and five chimneys for no apparent reason. It looked smaller than it was thanks to the thick stands of tall trees that surrounded it like judgemental friends drawing close to gossip about visitors.

“Your godfather really lives here?” Arthur asked. “Voluntarily?”

“Some of the time,” Merlin said, lugging bags out of the boot. “The thing with Kilgarrah is, you never actually know where he’s going to be until he’s there.”

It was Hunith who opened the door, standing on tip-toe to give each of them a hug around armfuls of bags. “You’re prepared for anything,” she remarked mildly. “I’ll help Arthur carry everything to your room, darling, your father’s around the back with Taliesin and Kilgarrah.”

That meant she wanted to take Arthur aside and prepare him, probably a good idea, though not very promising. Merlin had talked to his dad a few times on the phone and come around to Hunith’s once while Balinor and Taliesin were staying there, but he’d been so rushed off his feet with exams and wedding preparations that they had not had much opportunity to really talk. “Are you okay with…” Merlin began, turning to Arthur, who tugged the bags out of his hands and nudged him firmly with his free elbow.

“Go. I’ll catch up with Hunith.”

Kilgarrah’s house sat on a fairly sizeable chunk of land, but you wouldn’t know it from the cramped front garden. Around the back, though, was a long stretch of bumpy ground in near-perpetual shade from the many fir trees, leading more or less downhill to an ancient stone wall that looked like it was going to fall down any minute but in the thousand or so years it had been there, never had. There was a park on the other side when people went jogging or walked their dogs, unable to see the house through the screen of branches. Kilgarrah and Balinor were down at that end of the garden, and Taliesin sat on the wall, waving a branch in the air like he was conducting a symphony.

“Hey, Dad! Hey, Taliesin!” Merlin called, waving as he came to join them. “Hi, Kilgarrah. Merry Christmas!”

“It’s not Christmas Day yet, son, don’t use up all the merriment,” Balinor said, possibly joking.

“Where is the young Pendragon?” Kilgarrah asked sharply. “Has he abandoned you?”

“What? No. He’s inside, with Mum, he’s unpacking.”

“Brought a lot of fancy clothes, has he?” Balinor asked dourly. “I hope he’s got something sensible. Mud’s all over the place. Be a shame to ruin his Saville Row best.” Kilgarrah cackled.

Merlin frowned at them. “Dad. Please tell me you’re going to try and be friendly. This is the man I am _going to marry._ Even Uther has come around to the idea.”

“Uther Pendragon,” Balinor growled. “Don’t tell me he’s turned into a human being at last.”

“Actually, I think he might have. Enough to make Arthur happy, and that’s what matters. I knew he couldn’t be terrible all the time.” Balinor made a disbelieving noise and Merlin got back to the point. “Arthur _could_ be spending Christmas with his family, but he knew I wanted to see you and he decided to come here, and I don’t want him to regret it. Please, Dad. Try?”

Taliesin hummed thoughtfully, tapping his stick against his chin. He was elderly in the same way that Kilgarrah was, ancient and ageless, as if he’d been around as long as the wall. This impression was heightened by his habit of going on sudden rants about things like the Roman invasion, the reign of Owen Glendower, or mammoths. He had a crystal earring in his left ear and wore a long coat of indeterminate grey.

“Balinor didn’t want him to come,” he said. “But Kilgarrah did. He thinks it will be fun.”

“What’s so wrong with wanting one last Christmas with my son before he gets married?” Balinor said defensively. “You love this man, Merlin, and I hope you’re right about him, but he’s a stranger to me. Christmas is a time to be with family.”

Merlin nobly resisting pointing out the many Christmases Balinor had spent up a mountain in Wales, nowhere near Merlin, and said, “Arthur is going to be family. He already is, to me.”

Balinor did not argue with that, though it was clear he wanted to. “I’ll try,” he conceded, and pulled Merlin in for a rough sideways hug. “Let’s meet him, then.”

When they got in, Arthur and Hunith were seated at the kitchen table with cups of tea and the decadent mince pies that Morgana had acquired from a bakery she refused to name and had given them to pass on to Hunith as a Christmas present. There was no sign that they had ever planned to come outside as agreed. “These are very good,” Hunith was saying, holding up a half-eaten pie. “Do you think Morgana would like a bottle of Kilgarrah’s home-brew? There are usually a few bottles left over after Christmas, but it’s very strong.”

“I can say with confidence that she would love it,” Arthur said. “Thank you, Hunith.”

Merlin cleared his throat. His mother and fiancé turned around, saw the collection of relatives clustered in the doorway, and put down their teacups, exchanging a look that was entirely too confidential for Merlin’s comfort. It made Balinor narrow his eyes.

“Dad, this is my fiance, Arthur,” Merlin said. He sounded too much like Vivian in society hostess mode and cleared his throat again. “Arthur, this is my father, Balinor, and this is Taliesin.”

“Oh, you don’t look like Uther at all,” Taliesin said cheerfully. “Nicer eyes.”

“Thank you?” Arthur said, blinking.

“You worry too much, though, your thoughts are very loud,” Taliesin added, and made a beeline for the mince pies. Hunith pushed the plate towards him with a quiet sigh.

“O...kay,” Arthur said. He turned his attention to Balinor. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr Emrys.”

He held out his hand and Balinor took it in a crushing grip. Arthur did not wince; he was accustomed to macho posturing and rather too good at it himself when he felt threatened, though he was making a real effort to be approachable right now. While it took a practiced eye to see it, Balinor was making an effort too. They had a few minutes of stilted conversation about the weather while Kilgarrah grinned like a malicious Cheshire cat and Hunith pretended she was busy with the teapot instead of poised to leap in at the first sign of trouble. Merlin did his best to look relaxed and like he trusted anyone in this room other than his mother to behave reasonably.

“Merlin never told me how the two of you met,” Balinor said, once they were all seated around the table with a fresh pot of tea.

“Ah,” Arthur said. “Funny story, really.”

“He came into the Cavern,” Merlin interrupted quickly.

Balinor looked at Arthur flatly. “That’s not a funny story.”

“No, not really,” Arthur murmured, taking a gulp of tea.

“There was a party,” Merlin went on, hoping fervently that Taliesin could not _really_ read minds. “I met his sister and sister-in-law on the night before they got married, they’re fun people, have I mentioned them before? Mum, you liked them, right?”

“You met at a hen party?” Balinor said, ignoring the attempt at deflection. He frowned. “Someone held a hen party at the _Cavern_?”

Kilgarrah shot him a dirty look. “Mine is a quality establishment,” he snapped.

“Vivian loves your drink names,” Merlin said, seizing an opportunity to change the subject.

It did not work. “You met at a hen party,” Balinor continued inexorably, “and your first date was at a wedding. The next day. Is that right?”

“I suppose it sounds a bit sudden,” Arthur said, “when you put it like that.”

“What other way is there to put it?”

“Balinor,” Hunith said warningly.

“I just want to get my facts straight.”

“There’s not much straight about this relationship,” Merlin muttered. “Can we not?”

“Let’s go and collect holly for the wreath,” Hunith said decidedly, pushing back her chair. “Gloves in the drawer! Kilgarrah, where have you put the scissors?”

They all tramped back into the cold garden to cut branches off Kilgarrah’s enormous holly bushes, getting prickled through the gloves and piling up the greenery in the broken-down basket that had been used for this tradition since Balinor was a child. Merlin laughed at the betrayed face Arthur made at him. “You didn’t warn me about this,” Arthur growled, but quietly, as Balinor was still throwing them evaluating looks.

“Didn’t I?” Merlin said innocently, and jumped clear as Arthur swiped a branch at his legs.

Making the wreath was a fiddly, frustrating process that required a lot of pins, patience and ribbon. They were interrupted late in the afternoon when Hunith’s uncle Gaius arrived, his car boot packed with all the ingredients for the next day’s dinner. He gave the mess of branches on the kitchen table a pointedly unimpressed look but greeted Arthur civilly and went to make more tea while everyone else returned to wreath-wrestling.

When the wreath was finished, Hunith and Gaius kicked them all out of the kitchen to get on with making dinner. After the stew had been eaten and Kilgarrah had mixed a round of gin and tonics, they gathered in what Kilgarrah referred to as the parlour (“said the spider to the fly,” Arthur whispered to Merlin, who tried not to giggle). It was a big dark room with heavy dark furniture and long dark drapes, and a Charles Dickens villain would not have looked out of place brooding in it. The Christmas tree was sparsely decorated with little wooden animals and ornate antique candle-holders that Kilgarrah refused to convert into electric lights, despite the fire danger that had Hunith storing a bucket of water behind the sofa.

The presents that Merlin and Arthur had brought with them had been added to the stack already under the tree, and the Christmas cards were on the mantle-piece. Kilgarrah lit the fire and settled into the armchair nearest to it, gazing dreamily into the flames. Gaius and Taliesin started arguing about the medicinal properties of gemstones and Hunith, who Merlin had _trusted,_ brought out a stack of family photo albums for Arthur to look at.

Balinor came up behind the sofa to look at the pictures too. He was not in very many of them, not even at the start, before the divorce. He was not, when it came down to it, a very cosy or familial person, though he had tried for a while. Merlin glanced at Arthur to see what he thought and saw that he was examining each page with close attention, like there might be a test later. All relatives considered, there might be.

“You should bring some photos of your childhood, next time we see you,” Hunith suggested.

“We don’t have much like that,” Arthur said absently. “Morgana and I went into a studio for professional photographs once a year until we both went away to uni and my father had his PA keep the newspaper clippings we featured in for a while, I think, but I don’t know if he still has those. I think there was a magazine spread when I was five or six? They took photos at my birthday party. You can Google it if you like.”

Hunith and Merlin gave him incredulous looks that Arthur missed because he was smirking at eight-year-old Merlin dressed up like a wizard for a school play. Balinor made a grim sort of ‘knew it’ face.

“Well, I’d love to see whatever you can get,” Hunith said. “And you can have copies of these.”

“ _Mum_ ,” Merlin hissed. Arthur grinned.

“Thank you, Hunith,” he said sweetly.

Merlin insisted on going to bed soon after that, fake-yawning loudly until Arthur got the point and followed him out. They went upstairs to the room where Merlin had always slept when he stayed over, the curtains around the four-poster bed pulled back and the bags piled up on the floor. “You actually brought pillows,” Merlin said, exasperated.

“I can’t sleep with just one,” Arthur said firmly. “So, your father still hates me, then.”

“He’s getting used to you,” Merlin corrected. “It’ll take a while. Look at _your_ dad.”

“Mentioning him here feels like saying the name of Lord Voldemort.” Arthur pushed back the covers and sprawled on the bed, rearranging all the pillows until he had them just right. Merlin tucked in beside him with his head on Arthur’s stomach, tireder than was reasonable after a pretty lazy day. He felt fingers curl around his wrist and shifted to watch as Arthur pressed a kiss to the butterfly tattoo.

“Photos never meant the same thing to my family that they do to yours,” Arthur said.

“I didn’t say – ”

“You _looked._ Photos were promotion. They were always for other people, not for us. Anyway, if you knew the trouble my father had getting Morgana into the annual portrait, you wouldn’t be surprised at how few of them there are. Yours are cute, though. How many excuses did you find to put on that wizard beard?”

“Shut up,” Merlin grumbled, and turned off the lamp.

He was woken early the next morning by Taliesin sneaking into the room, mouthing an excited ‘Merry Christmas!’ and tip-toeing out again, trailing ribbon from one slipper. Merlin blinked at the ceiling for a few minutes. He could hear Gaius and Kilgarrah bickering on the stairs about what to make for breakfast, and could smell the hot chocolate that meant both of them had already lost the argument without knowing it yet. Merlin smiled. He rolled over and prodded Arthur awake.

“Arthur. Arthur? Merry Christmas!”

“Ugh,” Arthur said, trying to pull the covers back over his head.

He brightened at the prospect of hot chocolate. They went downstairs in T-shirts and dressing gowns, following the smell of breakfast. Balinor was standing over the chocolate at the stove. He wore slippers with grumpy dog faces on them – Hunith’s present to him last year – and rumbled out a ‘merry Christmas’ over his shoulder as he stirred.

There were golden crackers laid out on the table among the plates. “We always pull crackers at breakfast on Christmas Day,” Merlin explained, holding one out to Arthur. It exploded between them, the little plastic toy skidding under the fridge and the joke floating down to the floor.

“Why did the dragon get rid of his fridge?” Merlin read aloud.

“Why is everyone obsessed with dragons, that’s what I want to know,” Arthur said.

“Because,” Merlin said, “he didn’t like cold knights.”

Arthur looked outraged. “That is a _terrible_ joke.”

Balinor snorted. It wasn’t clear who he was agreeing with, but he poured out three mugs of hot chocolate and even got out the cream when Arthur wanted his milkier.

“You’ve never met a hot beverage you didn’t want to change, have you?” Merlin asked fondly.

“What is the point of having nice things if you’re not allowed to make them better?”

Another Christmas tradition in the Emrys family was to go for a long walk after breakfast. Hunith was exempt, still upstairs in a sleep they all knew better than to disturb. The ground was crunchy with frost and it was still quite dark outside. Merlin sniffed happily at the crisp air, catching Arthur’s gloved hand in his as they walked. The path led them through the park behind Kilgarrah’s house and into the town, where everything was still shut up and the streets were very quiet. Balinor walked along at the front, looking like a Viking with his beard and heavy eyebrows, beanie pulled low. Taliesin wandered off to investigate a squirrel and rejoined them on the walk home.

“Think of a number,” he said to Merlin.

“Really?” Merlin sighed.

“You’re getting so old,” Taliesin said mournfully, and looked at Arthur instead. “Think of a number. Ah! You did. Very decisive. Why is thirty one so important to you?” He waved a hand when Arthur, astonished, opened his mouth. “Of course. December 31st is the day before your wedding. We’re all very excited about that, you know.”

Arthur’s eyes slid to Balinor, who was trudging ahead in the mud.

“Some of us hide the excitement better,” Taliesin said cheerfully, and drifted off to join Kilgarrah.

Hunith was awake by the time they returned to the house. She’d made a pot of peppermint tea and switched on the radio, filling the kitchen with the familiar sound of carols. There was a general flurry of hugs and kisses on cheeks, teacups were passed around, and they trooped off into the parlour. It had been Merlin’s job to hand out the presents since he was big enough to carry them; he put the ones with his name attached to them on Arthur’s lap while he gave out the rest. Shreds of wrapping paper soon surrounded Kilgarrah’s feet as he clawed open his gifts. Merlin sat on the arm of Arthur’s chair and bent his head so that Arthur could loop a new scarf around his neck (Gaius gave him the same gift every year – this time Arthur got one too, red to Merlin’s blue).

The last parcel on the chair was small and wrapped in the plain brown paper that meant it was from Balinor. Arthur’s name was scrawled on the tag. Inside was a wooden picture frame with a delicate pattern of leaves carved into the sides. This was not the present that Balinor had been going to give Arthur – Merlin knew, because he’d checked to make sure his father planned to give one at all, and the joint gift of a birdbath had already been opened. Balinor must have stayed up most of the night to make this.

“You needed something for the wedding photo,” Balinor said gruffly.

Arthur looked startled. “Thank you,” he said, his thumb running back and forth along the leaf pattern. “That’s – really kind of you.” Merlin beamed. Balinor would probably be watchful around Arthur for years yet to come, probably there would be awkward conversations every time they met and fights once they knew each other better, but this meant an acceptance that was not given lightly. It meant that Balinor expected to see that wedding photo, whether he approved of it or not, somewhere prominent in Merlin and Arthur’s home for years to come.

It was an expectation Merlin would be more than happy to live up to.

But first he was going to hunt down a terrible childhood picture of Arthur and put it in the frame as a place-holder, because that was just part and parcel of becoming a member of the Emrys family. Arthur would get used to it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case anyone re-reads this story and is confused: when 'Give Your Word' was posted I realised (too late) that I'd messed up the date of the wedding in 'Deck Your Halls', and went back to correct it. Sorry!


End file.
